And why the Queen’s bedroom? That must have been planned, because that was where the Limoges dish was. Had he always intended to move the body and place it in the linen cupboard, or was that improvisation? Why? Pitt’s mind was racing. If Sadie had been killed in the Queen’s bedroom, by the time she was moved to the cupboard, she would have stopped bleeding profusely. So the extra blood was to fling around so it looked as if she had been butchered there.
Then it was meant from the beginning, all of it. But again, why?
And why was she naked? Minnie had been fully clothed. Was the answer that Sadie had been murdered in madness, but Minnie had been killed because in her driving curiosity she had come far too close to the truth?
Again, an obscene irony. Dunkeld had provoked a terrible murder born of madness, in order to destroy his son-in-law and free his daughter from the marriage. Then her intelligence had made her such a danger that in hideous sanity Sorokine had aped his own lunacy and killed her to protect himself. No wonder Dunkeld now looked like a man haunted by far more than grief.
How could Pitt prove that? How much did it matter? If Sorokine were guilty of the murders, then he had to be put into an imprison-ment of some sort. That was just. Dunkeld was a man even more evil, in that he had deliberately hired a prostitute with the intention of provoking Sorokine into murdering her, but his plan had exploded in his face, destroying his only daughter for whose freedom the whole tragedy was devised. Surely to live the rest of his life knowing that it was he who had caused her death was a more exquisite punishment than the law could ever devise?
And what would happen to Elsa? She would eventually either sink into madness, clinging to the delusion that Sorokine had been innocent. Or she would eventually realize he was guilty: a divided man, half of him charming, cultured, someone she could love; the other devoid not only of sanity but of the basic elements of compassion and decency that make one human.
Pitt could not imagine that Dunkeld would afford her any kindness. Her punishment for falling in love with someone else, the man who had also failed to love Minnie, would be continuous cruelty. He would exercise it both privately and publicly.
Pitt needed to prove all of it. Justice required it, whether the Prince of Wales liked it or not and, in turn, punished Pitt.
He must have drifted to sleep because he awoke with a jolt to hear a knock on the door. He sat up slowly, struggling to remember where he was, fully clothed on the big bed. The feeling of claustro-phobia was tight in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Before he could answer coherently the door opened and Gracie came in, carrying a tray of tea. He could see the steam rising gently from the spout of the small pot.
“Yer bin up all night?” she said with intense concern.
“No,” he assured her, swinging his legs down and standing. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. The stubble was rough on his cheeks and his head ached with a dull, persistent throb. “No,” he added.
“Elsa Dunkeld woke me at about three, or four. She said Dunkeld brought a Limoges plate in his luggage, exactly like the one that was broken. I mean identical to it. I presume that was the one I saw in the Queen’s room. And also a crate of port as a gift for the Prince of Wales.”
Gracie poured the tea and handed him the cup. “It’s ’ot,” she warned him. “Why’d she tell yer that? ’Ow’d she know the port bottles mattered, if she don’t know about the blood?”
“She didn’t, I asked her,” he explained. “She knew about the Limoges dish because she saw it in Cahoon’s cases, and everyone knows we’ve been looking for one by now. Thank you.” He took the tea. She was right, it was very hot. He wished it were a little cooler; he was thirsty for it. The fragrance of it was soothing even as steam. Drinking it would make him feel human again.
“Then Dunkeld done it,” she said with satisfaction.
“He didn’t do the one in Africa,” he answered, wishing it were not so. “I think he provoked Sorokine into it. He knew he was mad, and what it was that made him lose control and kill. He deliberately created the circumstances, then altered the evidence so we. .” He stopped. He could not think of a reason.
“Wot?” she asked. “Why din’t ’e just let us catch Mr. Sorokine?”
“Because he didn’t want a scandal in the Palace,” Pitt answered.
“He still needs the Prince’s backing for the railway. He’s taking a hell of a chance.”
She squinted at him, thinking hard. “If ’e wanted ter get rid o’ Mr.
Sorokine, why din’t ’e ’ave this murder ’appen somewhere else, anytime?”
“I suppose because somewhere else Sorokine might have got away with it.” He was thinking as he spoke. “The police would have assumed it was someone extremely violent or degraded. Here we know it could only have been one of three men. There was no possibility of anyone having broken in from the outside.”
She nodded. “Wot are we gonna do, then?”
He smiled at her automatic inclusion of herself. Her loyalty was absolute, it always had been.
“Find out what causes Sorokine to lose control,” he replied, taking the first sip of tea and swallowing it jerkily because it was still too hot. “And then prove that Dunkeld knew it, and deliberately created a situation in which Sorokine would snap.”
“Then you can ’ang ’im?” she said hopefully.
“Sorokine or Dunkeld?”
“Dunkeld, o’ course! ’E’s the wickeder!” She had no doubt whatever.
“Something like that,” he agreed, sipping the tea again, and smiling at her.
Pitt went to see Cahoon Dunkeld after breakfast. He had spent the intervening time shaving and making himself look as fresh and confident as he could. Then he remarshaled his evidence and the conclusions it had taken him to. When eventually he spoke to Dunkeld alone, it was in one of the beautiful galleries lined with pictures.
“What is it now?” Dunkeld said impatiently, facing Pitt squarely, his weight even on both feet.
Pitt put his hands in his pockets and stood casually, as if he intended to remain some time. “I believe you are an excellent judge of character, Mr. Dunkeld. You know a man’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Dunkeld smiled sourly. “If you have only just come to that conclusion, then you are slower than a man in your job should be. Is it a job, or profession, by the way?”
“It depends upon how well you do it,” Pitt replied. “At Mr. Narraway’s level, it is a profession.”
“I am not so far impressed with Mr. Narraway’s judgment of a man’s strengths and weaknesses,” Dunkeld said pointedly, his eyes looking Pitt up and down with distaste.
Pitt smiled. “How long have you known that Sorokine was insane? Since he killed the woman in Africa, for example?”
“I didn’t think he would do it again.” Dunkeld was clearly annoyed by the tone of the question.
“No, I assumed that, or you would hardly have allowed him to marry your daughter,” Pitt agreed.
“Obviously!” Dunkeld snapped, shifting the balance of his weight slightly. “Have you a purpose to this, Inspector?”
“Yes. I was wondering at exactly what juncture you thought he was mad.”
Suddenly Dunkeld was guarded. He sensed danger, although he could not place it. “Does it matter? Sorokine is guilty. The details will probably always be obscure. Your job is to tidy it up in the best, most just, and most discreet way that you can.”
“How did you know it was Sorokine?” Pitt pursued. “Given that you are a good judge of character, what did you see that I missed?”
Dunkeld smiled. “Are you trying to flatter me, Inspector? Clumsy, and you have based it upon a wrong assumption. I do not care what you think.”
“I am trying to learn,” Pitt said as innocently as he could.
Dunkeld angered him more than anyone else he could remember.
Even understanding his weaknesses, his driving need to belong to a class in which he was not born, his general need for admiration, even the bitter loss of his daughter, Pitt still could not like him. “People who kill compulsively,” Pitt went on, “insanely, are triggered into the act by some event, or accumulation of events, which breaks their normal control, so most of the time they appear as sane as anyone else.
But I imagine you have realized that.”
“I have,” Dunkeld agreed. He could hardly deny it. “You seem to be stating the obvious-again.”
“What was it that triggered Sorokine?”
